Curses and Reverses
by europanya
Summary: Some curses are better left untouched.
1. Chapter I to VI

**Title:** **Curses and Reverses - Chapters I-VI**

**Author:** europanya

**Rating:** M

**Disclaimer:** ABC better know what they've got going for them.

**Characters:** Ned/Chuck, Emerson, Olive, poor Olive

**Author's Note:** God, I love this show. Thank you letting me share that love with you. This is a longish piece I'm going to post in chapters. Looks to be twelve in all. This is the first half.

**Summary:** Some curses are better left untouched.

**Curses and Reverses**

by europanya

I

Ned should have known from the moment he woke that morning the day was going to be difficult. The alarm clock had decided to stick at 10:23 PM the night previous, probably the fault of aging Japanese wiring, or perhaps the heretofore loyal clock radio was merely trying to delay Ned from beginning this day's journey through a series of insufferable events, the first of which would involve a rushed over-slept dash to the shower and an unplanned encounter with his roommate who happened to be stepping out of a rather leisurely late morning wash herself. The combined effect of an opened shower curtain, the triangular placement of bathroom sink and door mirrors, further complicated by a disconcerting lack of towel (he'd forgotten to do the folding), presented poor Ned's newly awakened vision with a Picasso of heavenly curves and skin viewed in all possible angles at one fell swoop.

"Oops!" the masterpiece said with a smile. "Coming through!"

Ned found his vocal cords at that moment to be as inoperable as his clock radio. He collapsed against the bathroom door as she slipped by him, dripping into their bedroom.

"Hey, where's the towels?" She called from the next room.

Ned slapped his cheek. "They ah...they're still in the dryer. Sorry."

"Sorry? Sorry for what?" In a moment she was back, towel about herself and another draped over her hair which was still very damp and dangling about her bare shoulders. "Why are you sitting on the floor?"

"Why, uh, well, it's..."

"Are you okay? You slept late."

"I did, yes. I did sleep late. I'm just a little out of it and..."

"Ned, are you sure you're okay? You look feverish. You know sometimes oversleeping is just your body's way of telling you that you need to rest for reasons you may not be aware of--like possible retro viral activity or a bad slice of meatloaf you don't yet remember eating..."

"It's not that. No. I just...you startled me."

"Why? Didn't you remember I live here?"

"Oh, no, I didn't forget that. I never forget that. I'm always very aware of your...um...proximity." She was leaning over him now, an errant fragrant drop glanced his chin and he flinched.

"Is it because I was naked? Because if it was, it's nothing to be embarrassed about. Sometimes when you're in a hurry and forget to close the bathroom door all the way I'll sneak around the corner and take a little peek at you."

"You what?! You watch me pee?"

"Well, I don't do it specifically to watch you pee, but if you're wearing lose-fitting pants I'll sometimes get a little glimpse of your tush or something."

"Or _something_?"

"Maybe I shouldn't elaborate."

"Maybe I should get a dead bolt." Ned tried to stand but found his legs were still uncooperative.

"Are you sure you don't feel dizzy or flushed? Can I get you an aspirin?"

He was both, but it was nothing an over-the-counter remedy could cure. "I think I just really need a shower."

She shrugged. "Okay, but hurry; we're late."

The shower didn't help much. It was a warm day and the old pipes in their building rarely deviated in temperature from that of the ambient air. She was wearing the white sleeveless sun dress with the pink cherry blossoms that didn't conceal nearly enough of what was threatening to spill out over the soft freshly floured rounds she was preparing to roll under her pin.

"Ned..."

"Huh? What?"

"You're doing it again."

"Doing what?" He hastily reached for a clump of limp browned bananas and watched them instantly turn into a stiffened perfect yellow.

"Zoning out. It's like your mind's driven a hundred miles away today."

"Trust me, it's right here in this kitchen."

"I think you should see a doctor...wait, can you even get sick? I mean, if you're sick, can't you just touch yourself and make it all better?" She nodded to the bananas.

He swallowed. "Sometimes, but sometimes it only makes it worse."

"Huh?"

The order bell dinged.

"Ned! Is that no-sugar-added apple-crabapple out of the oven yet?"

"It's coming right...oh!" Ned raced for the oven.

"Did he forgot to set the buzzer?"

"He's a little out of it today."

"Ned never forgets to set the buzzer. He doesn't even need the buzzer; he's always there for his pies when they need him. Is he feeling all right?"

"I think Ned's a little attention-challenged today. His alarm clock didn't go off. Come to think of it, he doesn't need it to go off; he always turns it off right before..."

Ned presented the pie in question. "The no-sugar-added apple-crabapple is a little toasty but still good, I think. Who's ordered it?"

Olive looked testy as she examined the pie he offered her. "Mr. Uptown Uptight, is who. You're going to owe me the tip on this one."

"I'm sorry. I'm..."

"Distracted? I know the feeling. I deal. I don't sacrifice a single slice for it, either."

He leaned over the counter at his employee. "Are you accusing me of pie crucifixion? Because I'll nail...sorry, _stake_ my reputation that this one is still sound." She gave him a look. "On the inside. Try the left side, it was further from the heat. Can we comp him an a la mode?"

"Lactose intolerant."

"What about free coffee?"

"No dairy, no sugar, no caffeine, no dice. You're going down for this one."

Ned lowered his forehead to the cool counter top. Why couldn't he have just called this day a wash and stayed in bed?

"Oh, Ned..." Olive sing-songed a half-minute minute later.

"What?" he groaned into the polished oak.

"Mr. Crabby Crabapple wants to speak to the 'management.'"

"Tell him there's no charge."

"You tell him."

Ned gave her his best begging eyes. "Olive..."

She shrugged him off. "I already pointed you out so hiding in your hands isn't going to do you a bit of good."

Ned sighed, untied his apron, threw it back into the kitchen and went to face his disgruntled customer.

The heavyset man in booth #5 dressed in a $800 suit and $150 Jerry Garcia necktie did not look pleased. He sat tapping one diamond-studded pinky ring on the edge of his untasted, slightly singed slice of no-sugar-added apple-crabapple.

Ned had intended to tell this man go to Denny's or some other form of pie-hell if he was going to make a fuss over a $2.25 oozing pile of well-done fruit pectin, shortening and flour. Instead, he crumpled into the seat opposite with a sigh and let a slice of truth ooze out of himself.

"I know my customers have grown to expect their pie of choice waiting for them here everyday in a predictable Pie Hole state of steaming flaky perfection. But no one ever considers the lonely baker who wakes up every morning, wishing he could come in and enjoy the pie of his dreams. And he would if it weren't for a cruel stroke of irony that prohibits him from doing anything more than looking though a refrigerated glass case at his one and only dream pie and most days just being able to see at that pie is enough.

"But when I went to bed last night I had every intention of waking up on time to come in and prepare your no-sugar-added-apple-crabapple to perfection until mine stepped out of the shower naked, and even though I could peek like she does, I never dared because I knew I'd see something I could never have and dealing with that crushing disappointment is much like what you've just experienced--anticipating that first mouthwatering bite of complex bittersweet fruit ecstasy and being denied it so, seeing as I've never ever burned a pie before in my life, I'm begging you to just give me a break today, okay?"

The overdressed customer frowned. "Why not just pick up a fork and have it over with?"

Ned leaned in closer so no one else would hear. "Because then it would really be over, over before it even began and I would be left with nothing but an empty pie case and that would sap all of the pie-making life out of me and you'd find a closed forever sign hanging on the door the next time you stopped by for your no-sugar-added apple-crabapple of your dreams because mine would be gone." He closed his eyes. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. I'm cursed, I've always been cursed, and whining about it like this isn't ever going to make it any better."

"You're right about the whining. But you're wrong about the curse. Have you ever had yours properly diagnosed?"

"Huh?"

"There's all kinds of curses in this world, some more contagious than others. Some harder to cure than others. Was this one congenital or contracted?"

"I...I have no idea. I think it had something to do with puberty."

"Than it's congenital. That's not so easy to cure. But I didn't say impossible."

"Who are you?"

The customer reached into his back pocket and pulled out a business card. It read: Got Hex, Vex or Curse? Get it Reversed. Harmon H. Hamron, Representative.

"You're a hex broker?"

"Mmm, hm," he said, getting up and dropping a tip on the table next to his untouched slice. "You're the only piemaker in this damn town who makes no-sugar-added taste like sugar-added and I'd like to see it stay that way, so I'm going to cut you a break. Whatever's been cast on you, I've got the witches, wizards and what's its to get it fixed. Every problem's got a solution if you know where to look. Come by during office hours and I'll see what I can do."

Ned looked sheepishly up at him. "I don't really know what I should do."

"I do. Bring the pie along with you and I don't mean the ones you bake yourself."

II

The pie in question sat impatiently in red taffeta on the red velvet overstuffed office chair to his right as Ned sat with another, smaller, less sweet, but none-the-less potentially delicious pie in a box in his lap--one baked special for the office chair waiting room's owner to call them in.

The lovelier of the two pies spoke. "Where did you say you met this guy?"

"He came in yesterday. I had a brief chat with him. He seemed reasonably sane."

"How much did you tell him about...us?"

"Not much. He just seemed to know. I think he senses these things. He's a professional."

"A professional mystical services broker? How many clients could he have? This is the 21st Century. Who do you know believes in curses anymore?"

Ned raised a timid hand.

"Besides you and I, I mean."

"It could be a silent epidemic."

She shook her head. "I don't like the idea of sharing our private issues with strangers. We know what our boundaries are. We should be the ones to deal with them. Alone."

"I'm kind of tired of dealing with our alone boundaries."

"Why didn't you ever seek professional help before, years ago? Why now?"

Ned drummed his pie box nervously. "I didn't know there was any to be had. It's not the sort of thing you just look up in a phone book."

"Well, for the record, I'm going to say I don't like it. Messing around with magical...whatever can't be very safe or advisable."

A big heavy door opened.

"Hello, hello, it's my favorite baker and his, my, my, _lovely_ pies." Harmon H. Hamron emerged from his office, took Chuck's gloved hand and kissed it. Ned squirmed. Why hadn't he thought to do that today?

"_This_ one's for you," Ned said, standing and handing over the still-warm box to Harmon.

"Oooh, smells good. Come right on in!"

Harmon served up slices of his perfectly baked favorite flavor of preference onto paper plates with plastic forks. Ned politely refused his slice.

"Ned doesn't eat his own pies," Chuck explained, taking a big bite.

"So I've heard..." Harmon rumbled.

Ned forced his grin to stay in place. "So the other day you said you might know someone who can help us...uh, me?"

Chuck blinked at him. "I think you mean _us_."

"I said us, didn't I?"

"No, you requalified your question. You said you, or more accurately, 'me.'"

"I guess I don't think of you as the problem."

"Sure you do. If you didn't think I was a problem we wouldn't be here."

"But I'm the one with the curse or hex or whatever."

"And I'm the product of that curse, so that makes 'me' an 'us.'"

"Okay, it's an _us_ problem. Wait...are we having an argument? Because if we are I think yesterday would have been a better time to have had it."

Harmon had been watching their exchange like ping-pong. "So I'm to guess this 'problem' is causing some strain on the relationship?"

Ned nodded emphatically. "I would say that, which is why we're here to try and _solve_ it."

Chuck shrugged and took another bite of pie. "I don't see why we have to try and solve anything."

Ned's heart sank a few feet. "You don't? What about the whole...touching issue?"

"I thought it was a 'tasting' issue," Harmon interjected.

"What?" Chuck said.

"I was being metaphorical earlier. I was speaking in pies."

Chuck was amused. "You compared me to a pie?"

"Well, in a way, yes. You are like a pie. A very...possibly delicious pie that I'd very much like to...uh..."

"Taste?" Chuck finished with an eyebrow.

"I was going to say kiss, minus the wrappings—uh, the plastic kind."

Chuck turned to Harmon. "What flavor of pie did he compare me to?"

Harmon shrugged. "He wasn't specific."

She looked at Ned. "You couldn't be specific?"

"No. That wasn't the point I was trying to make."

"Not even if I was a cherry or berry or banana cream? Did I have whipped topping?"

"I don't...usually think of you with whipped topping."

"Usually?"

Ned sat up straighter. "Okay, I'm going to redirect this in a plain dessert-free manner. You see, my curse is this in a pie shell..."

Ned then went on to describe his particular problem, which he very much regarded as _his_ problem and his problem alone in great detail. Harmon listened carefully, took some notes, ate some pie, took some sips of unsweetened de-caf herbal tea and when Ned was finished, tore out a fresh piece of paper from his notepad and wrote down an address.

"This is the guy you want to see. He specializes in curse reversal. What you've got, my good baking friend, is a bona fide chronic curse. And you, my lovely, are one special lady indeed." The big man rose and took her hand for yet another kiss. This time ungloved. Ned ignored it. He was too hopeful to put up any fuss if that hand would soon indeed be his. He offered his own to Harmon for a shake.

"What do I owe you for this?"

Harmon patted his belly. "No charge, it's a pleasure keeping quality baked goods on the open counter."

"Chuck, we've been over this three times already." Ned was lying in his bed while she continued to fuss about the bathroom, arguing with him through the half opened door while she brushed her hair and teeth.

"I don't want you seeing this mystery curse person. It could make things worse."

Ned sighed and flopped on his back. "How could things possibly be any worse?"

She popped her head around the door. "That's exactly my problem with all this. I don't think of us as 'worse.'"

"I don't either, exactly. I'd just like to find out if things could be better. I mean, don't you realize how long I've been wanting to ask someone the whys and whats of all this? Why did I get this ability? What is its true purpose? Is this just a job I'm just supposed to do? And is there chance for early retirement?"

Chuck emerged from the bathroom with her hair tied up in a bun. It made him smile from the inside out. She really wasn't all that mad. He got out of bed as she got in hers and pulled the blankets up to her chin. He sat near her hip once she was covered and pressed his palms into the soft sturdy cloth that kept her shoulders safe. She hummed a little as he worked his way down her back. Her eyes were closing as she spoke.

"Will you promise me something?"

"Sure, anything."

"Don't do anything rushed or foolhardy."

"I promise."

"I'd hate it if he turned you into a frog or something."

"What, you have something against frogs?"

"Frogs don't have hands," she said with a yawning grin.

"No, they certainly don't."

III

Ned drove to Japantown the next afternoon. He told Chuck he was going to make a few deliveries and that was partially true. He made two drop-offs at homes near the waterfront, then took Harbor up to the giant red-railed Torii that marked the entry to the Japanese marketplace. The address he carried from Harmon's notepad read two blocks down on the right where there was a low iron gate with a garden beyond. When no one answered his hellos, he opened the gate and went in and walked around the edge of a long koi pond shaded by maples. He hated lying to Chuck, although this really wasn't lying so much as deviating from a projected delivery route, but something told him he'd be better off doing this alone.

At the far end of the pond he saw an arrangement of rocks and in the center of those rocks sat a still robed figure.

"Hello...?" The figure didn't move. Ned drew close and saw it was an old man sitting in the dappled shade with his eyes closed in meditation. Ned waited patiently for him to come out of it. But after several minutes he tried to rouse him again.

"Um, hi...uh, _konnichiwa?_"

The old man opened his eyes and regarded Ned expectantly.

Ned put his feet together and did his best bow. "_Shitsuri shimatsu_."

The old man returned the bow--thank goodness for Chuck's occasional late-night impromptu Japanese lessons. She'd run him through a few phrases whenever he couldn't fall asleep.

"_Hajimimashite_. Do you speak English? Uh..._eigo_?"

The old man frowned. Ned felt it served him right for leaving Chuck out of this.

"_Watashi wa_...no, wait, that's if I'm a girl..._Boku...no namae wa Ned-san desu._"

The old man closed his eyes. "_Shizuka_."

"_Shizuka_..._shizuka_...that's darkness? Or, quiet...? Wait!" Ned snapped his fingers. "Silence! That's it...oh. Sorry. I'll be quiet now. Right now." Ned sat down on the rock opposite and bit his lip.

Presently the old man took in a deep breath, clapped three times and stood up. Ned did the same--the standing, not the clapping.

"Look, I don't want to be rude, but Harmon H. Hamron sent me and if I knew you didn't speak English I'd have brought Chuck along because I know my Japanese is weak--"

"Your Japanese is terrible, that's why I asked you to shut up."

"Oh! You do speak e_igo_, uh English."

"Unfortunately."

"If you'd rather do this in Japanese, I can go get her and--"

"We don't need her. Follow me."

Ned did, keeping a step behind the man to show respect. The old man took him across the pond over a small arched bridge to a wooden lean-to filled with flowers, bells, charms, rice, ribbons and other offerings. On a low table in the center stood a three-legged brass bowl of water. He motioned for Ned to kneel before it.

Ned peered at himself in the stagnant, leaf-cluttered water. "What do I do?"

"Introduce yourself. Then address the bowl and tell it your concerns," the old man said. "Speak from the heart. Clap three times when you are finished."

"Uh, okay...how should I address the bowl?"

"Bob," the old man said with a huge smile.

"Bob? Bob the bowl. Great name." Ned peered awkwardly into his new confidant.

"Hi, Bob, how's it going? I'm Ned and I feel kind of silly right now but you see, there's this girl that I'm crazy in love with, who I live with, and spend every day with, but I can't touch her, not even for a second because if I did, I'd lose her forever and I can't stand that thought, it's the worst thought of all. But another thought is running a close second in the worst race and that's the one in which we both grow old waiting only to find out we could have touched all along if we'd only known how or when. If I could just find out how much longer I had to wait, even if it's years or decades—although I hope it's not decades—I'd be willing to wait, almost forever, but it's the not knowing I can't seem to stand anymore. And you see she didn't really want me coming here and talking to strangers or strange bowls about this because she's afraid of things changing between us and so am I. I'm terrified, in fact, but I just can't seem to help myself. I love her and I want to make her happy. And...that's pretty much it, I guess."

Ned sat back on his heels and clapped three times. He felt strangely lighter inside. The old man touched his shoulder.

"Did I do good?" Ned asked, waiting for something to happen; what, he wasn't sure.

The old man nodded. "Yes, you did."

The old man knelt beside Ned and looked into the bowl himself. His expression changed as if he was reading something.

"What do you see?"

"I see Bob's answer to your question."

"Question? Was I supposed to ask a question?"

"Bob tells me how much longer you must wait to touch your girl."

Ned's mouth went dry. "How...How long?"

"Eight hours, twenty-seven minutes and thirty-six seconds."

Ned's eyes flew to his watch. "What...? Are you serious? In eight hours?"

"That too long for you?"

"No, no not at all. That's incredible. What's going to happen?"

The old man got up and patted his arm. "Reversal," he said.

"What time is it?"

Chuck looked up from flipping through a fashion magazine and leaned over to check the clock in the bedroom across the hall. "Ten minutes since you last asked."

Ned counted his fingers, his precious stopwatch was sitting forgotten by the sink in the scullery after a final round of scatter-brained pan scrubbing earlier that evening. "That's t-minus twenty-one minutes."

She picked her magazine back up. "More or less."

"More or less? We need to be little more precise than that. Are you paying attention?"

"Ned, please stop pacing, you're making Digby seasick."

Digby whined from the corner in agreement. Ned stopped and proceeded to fidget with his hands behind his back instead. "How can you just sit there? Isn't your stomach doing Olympic-sized cartwheels, too?"

She put her periodical aside. "It is, but I'm refusing to let them tumble all out of me until I know there's a real reason to. We don't have any idea that man or bowl did anything. It doesn't sound like he lifted a finger—no potions, no chanting. Even you need to lift one finger. I don't want to get my hopes up."

"Well, can you at least help distract me from mine for the next twenty minutes?"

She smiled up at him. "Sure, but then what?"

"What? What do you mean what?"

"Well, let's say your condition improves in twenty and a half minutes precisely. What then?"

"What then? We can touch is what then."

"Ned honey, I know. But right now you've got yourself so wound up I'm afraid you're going to faint before we'll ever find out. Please sit down." Ned sat at the opposite end of the couch and took a breath.

"Sorry, what was it you wanted to know?"

She shrugged gamely. "I just wondered if you've given it any real thought. About touching me, I mean."

"I can't believe you just asked me that. Most times it's the only thing I can think about. I thought you knew that."

"I do know that. That's not what I meant. What I meant was have you thought about what kind of things you'd like to do together once we can touch."

If this conversation was meant to distract him from absolutely coming unglued at the seams, it wasn't helping. "I...uh..."

"Let me give you an example. Something I've been thinking about a lot is coming home with you at night and curling up on the couch together under one big blanket with a bowl of popcorn and watch old black and white movies until we fall asleep."

Distraction blissfully achieved. "What kind of popcorn?"

She grinned and hugged her knees. "I love big brass kettle popped popcorn with just a little salt and butter."

"We could have made that in the kitchen. Why didn't you mention it before?"

She giggled. "I don't know. It was kind of a private thought. What about you? Tell me one of yours."

Ned file-flipped through his mind to find something of equal romantic sentiment and found his scenarios to be somewhat less-ready for prime time. "I know the one thing that I've looked forward to most is knowing that I'll finally be able to keep you safe."

"Safe? Safe from what?"

"Safe from harm, safe from sorrow, safe from regret. I want to protect you from everything, anything that could hurt you, least of all me."

Her eyes were soft. "That's been a huge burden for you, hasn't it?"

He nodded.

"Well, it needn't be. I'm a big girl. I'm responsible for my own actions. You can't protect me from everything; why should you think that you have to?"

"Because I couldn't before. Not when you really needed it."

"Ned, you're not responsible for my death. No one is. Well, okay one person is, but that doesn't matter anymore. It's over and I'm here now, with you. And I feel very safe."

He grinned--more than anything in the world he wished he could kiss her right now at this very second and not a minute later.

"Ned?"

"Yeah?"

"What time is it?"

IV

They spent the final five minutes in silence, sitting as close as they dared at the edge of the couch, staring at the clock in the bedroom. Ned stood for the last thirty seconds and approached the bedroom doorway until the clock at last read 9:24 pm on the nose. He at once felt a jolt go through him, but it was only one of revelation that the time in question had at last arrived, although nothing else of note seemed to have occurred.

"Ned?"

He jumped. "What?"

Her eyes were huge. "Anything happen?"

"I don't know; I'm not sure." He crossed the room, stepping carefully around a sleeping Digby and fished around in the windowsills for something dead. There was a moth, small and dried in the corner behind the curtains. He turned to glance back at her once more before touching its faded wing. The familiar zap was felt and the once-dead moth flew to life as Ned felt drained of his. He turned and sank to the floor behind the dining table with a sigh.

"Oh, Ned. I'm so, so, sorry."

Ned couldn't bring himself to look at her. All he could see was the long dismal road of disappointment stretching out before him and at the end of it, her shoes. She was standing in front of him.

"I really wish I could hug you right now."

Ned's eyes swam and he hid them from her in his hands. "I'd like to be alone for a minute, please."

"Okay," she said softly. "I'll just go get ready for bed."

Ned wanted to keep his misery to himself. She'd been right not to trust in hope. He sat in darkness for twenty minutes, maybe more, before realizing even in this short wretched emotional separation, he missed her. He wiped his eyes and got up to turn in for the night.

She was in bed already, her hair unbound and splayed across the pillow. She rolled over slowly when she heard him sit down on the bed opposite.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked.

"I think so. I was just really looking forward to popcorn with you."

She found a sad smile. "I know, me too. Goodnight."

Ned removed his shoes and shut out the light, lying on top of his covers, too exhausted to get anymore undressed. At least this way he wouldn't have to worry about being late again for work. He rolled over to set the alarm. The button stuck and he had to whap the machine to get it to advance the setting. The clock jumped ahead several minutes. Ned sat up like a rocket. He'd whapped it this morning, too.

"It's fast now! What kind of appliance plays these sorts of games?"

"Ned? What's going on?"

Before Ned could explain the dearth of reliable timepieces in his life, Digby bounded into the room with a bark and jumped up onto the bed, knocking his master over with a big slobbery doggy kiss.

"Digby, whoa! Easy, boy! Easy!"

The light came on the in the room. Chuck was standing over them in shock. "Digby knows," she said with amazement. "Did something happen? Did you feel anything?"

Ned laughed and wrestled his dog on the bed with equal delight. "Not a thing. Hah! He's still ticklish under his belly." The dog barked and lapped at him with more kisses. "Okay, okay. Settle it down, boy. I missed you, too, but..."

His eyes went to hers, where she stood next to his bed with her hair tumbled about her and her face freshly washed and her nightdress rumpled and her lips parted. It was done.

He whistled at the dog. "Out!" The animal obeyed, sensing something of an all-together different nature stirring in the bedroom.

"Come here," he said softly but with no less authority. And she did, knelt, placing her hands on his still-clothed knees. Trying to hold them back from shaking, Ned placed his hands over hers and they locked. They both sat in shock for a moment, pondering the weight of this act. "They're so small," he said.

"What?" She sounded like all the air had gone out of her.

He smiled. "Your hands, they feel smaller than they look."

"I guess feeling is a lot different from seeing," she said.

"Maybe. Let's find out."

The first kiss was soft and gentle, and not unlike the very first one they had shared so many years ago. Hands still linked, they leaned into each other like taking a sip from the still surface of a pond. It was chaste, pure and beautiful. Ned stared at her in wonder when it ended, unable to speak over the pounding in his chest.

The second kiss, however, was a great deal less refined. Ned's eyes went wide as he was knocked back onto the bed by its full-mouth, full-Chuck force. Soon she was everywhere on him, disarming him as she covered his mouth, neck and nose with quick hot kisses while her hands disassembled his clothes as fast as they could be disassembled and Ned berated himself for not getting properly undressed for bed in the first place. Her nightdress came off in one fluid move of her arms raised up over her head and what he'd seen stepping out of the shower the other morning was all of a sudden, unmistakably, remarkably, his. That is if he could only catch her—she was halfway down the bed now, peppering his belly with smooches and pitching a one-mad-woman skirmish with his belt.

"Whoa, hey, wait...let me..."

He took over for her in the particulars of his disrobement as she crawled back up next to him, plunging her fingers into his hair and smothering his mouth again. "They're so soft; I knew they'd be soft," she moaned between mouthfuls. "And your hair and your skin and your...oh, Ned, honey, don't wait."

He scrambled out of his trousers and rolled her under him to try and gain a little more control over the situation before she made him lose the rest of his. They were touching now, no mistake, without any restraints and Ned found that none of his most secret, lustful depraved fantasies had quite prepared him for the reality of a very naked, very warm, very willing, very, very wet Chuck who at that exact moment was wrapping herself around him so tightly he had no place left to go except in. And in again, as blind nature and overwhelming desire would have it. He had to stop kissing her just to breathe and she used her newly freed mouth to tell him just how much she appreciated his endeavors.

"You feel so good; I knew you'd feel good—oh, this is so, so much better than watching you pee."

What happened next Ned could only describe later as an irrepressible welling of absolute joy. Followed closely by the total collapse of every working muscle in his body. Stars weren't the only things he was seeing. Some comets spun through the room, too. "Sorry," he gasped, pressing his lips to her neck.

She kissed his tousled head. "Sorrys? There's no sorrys allowed here. Just beginnings. New ones. Lots of new ones." She lifted his face and kissed him. "And the next one's starting right now."

"Mmfph!" he said as she rolled him under her to begin making good on that promise.

Ned wasn't sure when the night began or when it ended, there were only ebbs and peaks of indescribable pleasures so vast and mysterious and so far beyond the vistas of his imagination, he couldn't name them all. What he did know was that for the first time in twenty years, in the small span of his single bed, Ned felt free—free to move, free to grasp, free to feel, smell or taste anything his heart desired—for as long as he desired. The pie case was flung open and she wanted him just as urgently in return—she begged him to taste her here, to caress her there and to consume hidden places he never dreamed existed.

Sometime in the early hours, limbs entwined and sleep at last falling upon them, she refound her voice.

"I used sneak into my aunts' library before dawn on Sunday mornings when they slept late so I could look deep into the shelves for things they liked to keep hidden from me. Among the old dusty bodice rippers and ancient works of human procreation practices there were medical books with pictures of the insides of ourselves: the brain, the guts, the heart, the bones. I tried to imagine it, all those organs and blood vessels pumping and stretching and working inside me and I wondered where in all those cells and sinews did we keep our souls? Here was no mention of it, although there was plenty talk of souls in the other books. It occurred to me one cold winter morning that something was terribly wrong. Something was missing. Something medical drawings, sutras and overly adverbed purple prose couldn't explain. Or maybe it just didn't exist.

"When I died, I knew for the first time that those medical books must have been wrong. Because it was all I had left of me when my organs failed and my mind shut down. I felt _me_, for the very first time, unencumbered. And it was so sad because it was all too late..."

She started to cry softly and he held her close, watching the light outside the window just begin to grow.

"I used to be wrong about something, too," he said. "I used to believe that I could live my whole life without ever being close to another human being. That I was fine by myself, and I was okay with that idea. Until I found you again and felt that same kind of despair--that I had been entirely, stupidly, tragically mistaken. I thought I could live without this; I had _no idea_..."

She turned in his arms to face him. "Thank you," she said.

"For what?"

"For not just bringing me back to life, but for giving me one as well."

Ned kissed the tear from her cheek and gathered her close, grateful just now for the darkness.

V

The hardest thing Ned ever had to do was bring himself to leave the comfort of his bed at 6:02 am (give or take 30 minutes) later that morning. After a brief shower and a hasty run around the block with Digby—more to refresh himself than the dog—he knelt by his bed, still full of Chuck, and kissed her softly goodbye. She stirred from her dreams.

"Where're you going?" she asked.

He smiled. "To the shop. Got pies to bake."

A lazy arm reached for him. "Call in sick."

He took her hand and kissed it. "Can't, my boss is a real ass."

She elbowed herself up. "I want to come with you."

"Naw, sleep. One of us should. I'll likely burn the place down at some point today and come home early anyway. I'd like to find you still here—in bed. I suppose we're going to need a bigger one now."

"I don't want a bigger one. I like this one."

"Hmm...maybe we'll switch tonight. Try yours for a change of scenery."

She laughed and touched his face. "I don't want this to ever end."

"My chin?"

"No, us. I always want to feel the way I feel about you right now."

"I know. Me too. Now that I can touch you I hope you know I won't ever be able to stop." He leaned in for a small kiss. "Come by when you get up, huh? No rush."

"Ned?"

He stopped at the bedroom door. "Yeah?"

"Are you going to tell them?"

"Tell them what?"

"About us, I mean. The change."

He thought it over a second and shook his head. "Let's keep it our little secret for a while. Less likely to jinx it that way."

"Okay."

"You slept with her, didn't you?"

"What?"

Emerson Cod was not a man easily fooled. "You and dead girl, you made the octopus with two backs, it's written all over you."

Ned put down the sugar shaker he was refilling and sat in the booth seat across from him. "Keep your voice down."

"The four-legged crab, the naked pretzel..."

"Shh... There were no..._baked_ goods involved in anything."

"Nope, but there was a baker and his baguette. I knew something was up yesterday, the way you two were making goo-goo eyes at each other. Surprised you managed to take it to-go. So what did you do, get fitted for a pair of custom rubber suits? Never mind, don't answer that."

"You really have a way of making the purest things in life so base."

"I got even money says there weren't nuthin' pure about what you did to that girl last night. Don't need reading glasses to see you ain't slept a wink."

"I did sleep a wink. At least a wink." Ned looked around the floor--Olive must still be on break. "How can you tell what I was up to last night? Not to take that question as a sign of admission."

"That damn hickey on your scrawny neck for one."

Ned clasped a hand to his neck and picked up a spoon, cautiously examining himself in it. "Wait a minute, there's no..."

"Got you."

"Huh?"

Emerson picked up his coffee cup in triumph. "I wasn't 100 sure. Now I am."

"Thanks a lot. I told Chuck we were going to, you know, keep it quiet for a while."

"What the hell for?"

Ned leaned in to Emerson. "Olive. I need to break it to her gently. You know how she is."

"Ain't no way you're gonna break nuthin' about this easy except over her head with a sledgehammer. That girl's crazier than a headless moose about you."

"Still, I care about what she..." his words left him. Chuck was coming in though the door. The biggest grin in the world spread across his face.

Emerson rolled his eyes. "Here we go."

She came up to the table and removed her scarf and sun glasses. "Hi Ned! Hi Emerson! Beautiful morning, isn't it?"

"It's noon," Emerson corrected.

She took the booth seat next to Ned who politely scooted over, entirely focused on how utterly breathtakingly beautiful she looked. Not a hair out of place. Well, a few--the cute, soft curly ones that clung to her cheeks. Her eyes smiled back at him; she was positively glowing. Without thinking they started to lean toward each other.

"Whoops!" She caught herself and straightened up.

"You don't have to pretend right now. Emerson knows."

"Oh, thank goodness!" She wasted no time bringing his face to hers for a nice, long, moist kiss that left him woozy.

"Uh, God," Emerson groaned as Chuck wiped a touch of lipstick from Ned's mouth. "It's worse than I thought. So much for my rubber suit theory. Great, you two all touchin' now, huh?"

Chuck beamed. "Yep, we are. We touch all the time now. In fact, we touched so much last night that--"

"Okay, honey! That's fine, we don't need to go into the details."

"Please, yes, spare me the details," Emerson agreed. "However, you can tell me one thing. How'd you do it? How'd you turn it off and more to the point, can you turn it back _on_?"

Chuck offered an explanation. "Oh, it's not coming back. It's gone completely. We got Ned fixed!"

Emerson snorted.

"Hey!" Ned was a tad insulted.

"No, no, not like that," she said, hugging his arm. "Ned's a stallion."

Ned felt himself turn eight shades of pink.

"Your stallion here thought about what he's gonna be doing for a living once his racetrack is all closed down and boarded up for sale?"

Chuck looked worried. "Sweetie..?"

"You think this dead-free dream life of yours gonna be worth squat once sweetie-pie here starts paying full market price for produce?"

Ned felt a little nauseous. "I didn't think of that."

"No, you sure as hell didn't. You didn't think of your old buddy Emerson, either. Trust me, a storm is gonna blow through this town before long and ain't none of you going to be left standing. Some time curses need to be left alone for a reason."

An eardrum-shattering smashing of a full decaf coffee pot accentuated Emerson's foreboding comment. Olive had come back from her break. Ned hastily removed his arm from around Chuck's shoulders.

"Too late now," Emerson said. "Cat's outta the bag and it's pooling this way."

Ned got up. "I'll go get a mop."

Ned found Olive sobbing over the rolling mop bucket in the janitor's closet. He touched her shoulder. "Olive, I'm sorry but you knew Chuck and I were..."

She snorted back a nose full of snot and wiped her face on a dish towel. "I know. I know. But I thought, I hoped." Her face crumpled. "She _told_ me she had a deadly Ned allergy!"

He shrugged. "Doctors...they can cure anything nowadays. We just needed to find the right one."

"Well, I hope you're happy," she whimpered into the towel as she got up. "That's all I ever wanted for you."

He tried to comfort her with a platonic half-hug, but she pushed past him. "Don't touch me," she said. "I'm clocking out for the day."

Ned felt like six feet of freshly dug earth. "That's okay, really. Go home; take it easy. Oh, if you're going home, can you drop by my place and walk Digby? He's been stuck in all day."

She dropped the towel from her face and sobbed anew as she made a dash for the ladies' room.

"Or, maybe not..." he rubbed his eyes. God, this day was getting longer by the minute.

VI

Ned had intended to use the couch in the break room for a quick power nap to give him a leg up though the second half of the day. Chuck, however, had other ideas. He hadn't dozed off for more than ten minutes before she slipped in with the lights off to give him her own leg up. Or two--over him, straddling his apron and kissing him stupid.

"God, I want you," she panted between smooches. "Don't you want me?"

"Mmm, yes, I do. But, oh...mm, I'm operating on very few brain cells at the moment and..."

The lights came on. Chuck hopped off him and rearranged her skirt. It was Emerson.

"Ain't you two worried at all about the health code in this joint?"

"Well, technically no food preparation was taking place..." Ned began.

"I hope you both intended to wash your hands when you were finished. I eat here!"

"And I work here," Ned said, irritated. "This is my break room—no customers allowed."

"I guess not. I suppose you've been too busy to watch the news?"

Ned and Chuck looked at each other. "Why?"

Emerson walked over to the table and flipped on the mini TV. Channel 4 was running the end of a report.

_The family of Mr. Hamron is offering a 5-million-dollar reward for any information leading to an arrest in this case. More at 6._

"Five million! _Fiiive_ million!" Emerson bellowed. "We all could've retired on this bitch! But no, you had to go and get your horny ass fixed!"

Chuck looked at Ned, then at Emerson. "Harmon is dead? How?"

"News report said it looks like some kind of freaky-deaky cult did some bad mojo on this mofo."

Ned shrugged. "Sorry. I'm sorry I can't help him, either. Chuck and I were going to send him a 'thank you' pie everyday for the rest of his life."

"You were what? You know this dude?"

"He's the one who fixed us up with someone who could help us get Ned fixed," Chuck explained.

"Can we stop using that terminology, please?"

"What are you two saying? He's some kind of curse therapist?"

"Broker, actually," Ned said. "It's a career, turns out."

"Well come on, close up early; we gotta get busy."

"Busy doing what? I can't...perform anymore. Ugh...now I'm doing it."

"Get your coat," Emerson said, patting his gun. "We gonna solve this one the old-fashioned way."

"Ned...? Ned, honey. Wake up."

"Hmm? What? When?"

"The morgue, right now. You fell asleep."

Ned let out a vicious yawn and found his feet just in time to watch Emerson palm something to the coroner with a wink.

"You two have a thing I don't know about," he asked Emerson as they slipped through the double doors.

"Mind your business. Now get in there and start looking for clues."

The body in question was covered in a giant blue sheet which did nothing to cover the smell.

Ned held his nose. "Why do they always have to stink like that?"

"The dead don't apologize," Emerson said. "Go ahead, uncover him."

Ned pulled the sheet back with a shudder. Chuck stepped up and looked the body over.

"Why did they suspect cultists? I don't see a mark on him. Do you, honey?"

Ned declined to comment.

"You'd best turn him over, then," Emerson said.

"Whoa, not a chance," Ned said. "You turn him over."

"I don't touch the dead. That's your field."

"Was my field. _Was_. I don't do this...morbid stuff anymore."

"Sure you don't. That's why you're here."

"You know he's got a point," Chuck said. "Why are you here?"

Ned crossed his arms. "Because, I...I was curious about how he died. He was very helpful to us, once."

"The only thing you're curious about is how good your hoochie's gonna look wearing two million dollars."

Ned looked at Chuck who looked at him. "I...was not."

"That kind of money sure does buy a lot of peaches and roses. Now stop playing holier-than-thou and start flippin'."

It took Ned, Chuck and a push broom to finally wedge the big man over.

"What the hell is that?" said Emerson. On Harmon's back was a large black burn mark with lighter strokes in the center. "He leave the stove on or something?"

Ned leaned over gingerly. "I think...is that Japanese?"

Chuck stood on her tippie toes to see for herself. "It is. It's the Kanji for Revenge, War and Beginning."

"That doesn't sound healthy," Emerson commented.

"The man Harmon sent me to was some kind of Shinto priest. He wouldn't open his eyes until I greeted him in Japanese, badly."

Chuck grinned. "You didn't tell me that. I wish I'd been there."

"I wish you'd been, too."

"So how'd you do?"

"I got my name right, that's about it."

"Did you remember to use _Boku_."

Ned smiled. "I did."

"Aw, that's my little samurai."

Emerson cleared his throat. "Excuse me, but before you all give a man diabetes, are you saying this priest guy had it in for your broker? Isn't that biting the hand that feeds you?"

Ned nodded. "I'd say that's a healthy guess."

"Well, a healthy guess is all we got. How healthy is your memory of where we can find this bad-ass Morimoto?"

"I found him sitting in a garden near the Japantown marketplace."

"He got a home or business?"

"I don't think so."

"You mean he doesn't have an address?"

Ned shrugged. "He sits near a pond."

"Genius. Now listen up; here's the plan: two of you go back and chat this no-house-havin' dude up like you all got marital problems or some other anti-curse-related issues while I go nose around under his rocks and water lilies for evidence. We keep it nice and casual so none of us wakes up with a permanent take-out menu on our backs. Any questions?"

Ned raised his hand. "I have a question."

"Yes?"

"When does Ned get to take a nap?"

"Ned doesn't get to take a nap. Ned should have thought of that before he left the house."

"Ned was...busy."

"Ned was a damn fool and now he'd better get his head together and start taking care of business. The right kind of business!"

to be continued soon...or visit my livejournal for chapters in progress under euro-fics.


	2. Chapter VII to XI

**Curses and Reverses- Chapters VII - XI**

by europanya

VII

Ned froze when they arrived at the Japanese garden gate at twilight.

Chuck squeezed his hand. "Ned, honey, what is it?"

Ned looked up and down the block to check his bearings. "I...this has to be it." He opened the now rusted, bent iron gate and led the three of them in. Dried grass and leaves crunched under their feet as they walked under the bare branches of the maples. Ned gasped and jogged over to the pond. It was now little more than a puddle of muddy murky algae soup. "This was...it had koi in it and lotus and watercress. It was beautiful. You have to believe me."

"You touch something the last time you came thorough?" Emerson asked, dubious.

"No! I wouldn't have made a difference. The garden was full of life, everywhere. I'm...very depressed now."

Chuck put her arm around him. "Show me where the priest was sitting."

Ned pointed across the withered beds. "Those rocks over there."

In the rock circle all Ned found was more dead leaves and debris. "I sat right here and watched him meditate. Then he came around and took me over that bridge to his shrine."

Emerson frowned. "What shrine?"

"It's...I can't see it from here--too dark, but it's got to be there. Follow me."

The bridge was still standing, albeit barely. But it was necessary to use it to cross over the deepest part of the remaining pond to get to the island beyond. Ned hopped over its groaning arch quickly and waved for Chuck and Emerson to follow. Chuck came over but Emerson stayed put.

"You tell me if there's anything exciting going on over there, then I'll consider it," Emerson said. "I just had this suit cleaned." He took out his pocket flashlight and started nosing through the weeds in the rapidly fading light.

Ned led Chuck across the island to where the shrine had stood but all they found was a pile of splintered rotten wood coated in webs. Ned toed at it and a rat skittered out. Chuck squeaked but held her ground. "What are you looking for?"

"I don't know—ribbons, petals, little bells...something to let me know I wasn't hallucinating yesterday."

"Ned, it looks like nobody's been in here for a very long time."

"I _know_ that. But something happened to me here. Something very special and magical and I don't understand why it's all died away like this. I feel like it's somehow my fault."

"Why?"

"Because there has to be a balance: death for life, life for death. It's like yin and yang. I asked to be freed of something that was my burden and no one else's and I'm afraid--"

"Hey!" Emerson called out. "There's something sticking out of the water over here!"

Ned swallowed. "What? And please tell me it's not an arm."

"How does brassy and round grab you?"

Ned sucked in a breath. "Oh, no..!Bob!" 

"You acquainted with this bowl?"

"Can you hand me that branch, Emerson? I need to knock it loose with something. And yes, the bowl and I are acquainted. We met during the...de-cursing event."

"That like picking up a bridesmaid at a wedding?" Emerson said, tossing the branch up to Ned on the bridge who got down on the planks and threaded the branch through the rails.

Ned grimaced as he tried to reach down on his belly to whack Bob out of his mucky grave. "Not exactly. Although there was rice involved. Got a longer one? Anyone?"

"They're all too small or too thin!" Chuck called out from the bank.

"I can almost get it. Emerson, I need a hand. Two of them."

"Oh, boy, my lucky day. Don't you make any fancy moves, now—I don't want this pile of kindling coming down."

"It won't," Ned grunted. "I just need you to hold my legs. Come lay over me."

"I ain't layin' over your nuthin'," Emerson said, gingerly taking the wooden steps up the bridge. "What a cockamamie plan this is. Best let muddy bowls lie."

Ned ignored him and kept whapping his stick out a little further. Bob was beginning to rock loose. He scooted his shoulders under the railing and the bridge moaned. "Grab me!"

Emerson came down on all fours and grabbed Ned's ankles as he started to slide. Their combined shifting weight tipped the arch precariously and lurched both piemaker and detective overboard.

"Oh, _hell_ no!" cried Emerson mid-slide as the bridge railing splintered and failed and Ned at last succeeded in exhuming his bowl from the mud, by belly-flopping on it.

Chuck did her best to bite down the giggles as she hosed two men and a bowl down by the exit gate. At least one part of the garden was still functioning.

"Watch it where you're pointing that hose, childe! That mutha's freezing!"

Ned shivered and took his lumps like a man. It was humiliating enough having to ask Emerson to please roll off of him so he wouldn't drown in three feet of yuck. He squeezed his eyes shut, clutching Bob like a life preserver under the very cold shower he no longer required.

"I sure as hell hope that piece of tin was worth the dry cleaning bill you gonna see come Monday," chattered Emerson. "What's so damn special about it anyway?"

Chuck shut off her weapon and wiped her hands on her splattered skirt. "It's the mystical object the Shinto priest used to perform Ned's de-cursing."

"What's it doin' in the drink, then?"

Ned shrugged and cradled his bowl, reassuringly. "I don't know, but I hope now that we have Bob back with us, we'll be able to get some answers."

Emerson looked at Chuck and made a crazy sign with his finger. "He naming all his mixing bowls now?"

Chuck shook her head. "No, this one came with a name. Come on, let's get Bob and the two of you home."

VIII

In his dream he was in the pond, restored to its former glory, swimming with the koi, searching for something along the murky bottom. A light bloomed in the watery depths and he saw Chuck, hair billowing around her perfect face. She had a fish tail, green scaled and shimmering. He swam to her and she took him up in her arms for a bubbly kiss. He pressed himself to her only to discover he had a tail of his own and he entwined it elegantly with hers--the mystical merlovers of the Japanese gardens. Someone was squeezing his shoulder. He released his water nymph to look behind him into the dark brown eyes of a monster. It was holding up a ring, rimmed with diamonds. "Bitch, did you forget to flush?"

"Oh...!" Ned jolted awake. He was neck-deep in a deliciously warm bubble bath with Chuck rubbing his shoulders.

"Honey, it's okay. You were dreaming."

Ned relaxed into her heavenly hands. "God, I hope so. Emerson makes a frightful mermaid."

"I bet," she giggled. "Sit up, I'll wash your hair."

"I don't know...something weird is still going on in that garden. I wish we could talk to Harmon."

"I don't," she said, working a lather into his hair. "I'd much rather be able to do this." She turned his head and kissed him deeply with hands full of bubbles that tickled his nose. His dream wasn't that far off—here was his beloved pondmaid with lips of sugar...his tail longed to tangle with hers.

He tugged at her shirt collar. "I think you could use a bath, too..."

She smiled against his mouth. "Hmm...maybe..." Just as she was about to relent, the doorbell rang.

She kissed his nose. "Don't move a muscle. I'll go get rid of whoever that is."

Ned sighed happily and sank under the water. When he came up for air he found Digby sniffing the rim of the tub. "Hey, boy. Just me in here--so far. You have fun with Olive?"

In the distance he could hear the two women having a conversation at the front door. It sounded civil, kind even. A deep part of his male psyche was going to miss having two women--

Chuck's shriek and the sudden blare of the clock radio cut off his thought before it could advance into something not-quite-so-squeaky-clean as the rest of him. It was 9:24 pm.

"Chuck? Sweetheart? You all right?"

"Ned, get over here!"

Ned scrambled out of the bath and grabbed a towel off the door rack, unwittingly shutting Digby in the bathroom who began to bark hysterically. He managed to get the towel tucked around his waist before arriving at his open front doorway. Chuck was standing out on the landing holding her hands over her mouth. Olive was out cold on the ground at her feet.

"What happened?"

Chuck's hands were shaking. "I...went to give her a hug and she just collapsed."

"What? Why?" Ned knelt and touched Olive's face. She was more than out cold. She was dead. Ned tried to lift her up. "Oh, my God. Olive! Olive!"

Chuck started to cry. "I didn't mean...I didn't..."

Ned was in shock. "What did you do?"

Chuck knelt on the other side of Olive's body. "I just wanted her to understand...that we...that you and I..." She touched Olive's limp hand and the diminutive woman surged back to life.

Ned dropped her like a rock and she moaned. "Whoa!" he said, holding up both hands. "I know that zap. Who did that?"

Chuck was looking wide-eyed at him. "I think_ I_ did!"

"What? How?"

Inside, the clock radio was still blaring and the dog was threatening to claw his way out from under the bathroom door. Old Mrs. Wilcox opened her door on the floor above and came out onto the veranda.

"What the hell is going on down there? Don't you kids know what time it is?"

"Sorry?!" Chuck yelled. She looked at Ned and the rousing Olive. "Take care of her. I'll go shut that off."

Chuck moved past them and Ned scooped Olive back up into his arms to carry her home.

Exactly 35 seconds later, from somewhere above, came a thump.

Ned lugged a woozy Olive next door and laid her gently on her tacky bed. Her eyes fluttered open to a view largely comprised of barenaked Ned-flesh.

"Oh, Ned, you naughty thing, did we...?" Her fingers trailed down his chest.

He stood up and checked his towel for secureness. "Um, no. Afraid not; you see I was in the bath and..." It dawned on him he had no explanation whatsoever prepared.

"Whose bath..?" Olive looked toward her identical floor plan bathroom.

"Mine. I fell in a koi pond earlier trying to rescue a...maybe all of that's not really important. What's important is how are you feeling?"

"Feeling?" Olive touched her chest in rapture. "I'm feeling won-- are you sure we didn't just have sex?"

Ned nodded. "Pretty sure."

"Then why are you standing over my bed looking guilty?" She gave him a sly grin. "If you tell me, I promise I won't tell Chuck."

"Chuck knows. Actually, she was there—"

Olive gasped. "She was _there_?"

"I'm...not explaining this very well. The thing of it is, you fell."

Olive patted her head. "I did?"

"Yes, you came by to drop of Digby and when Chuck opened the door, you hit your head."

"On what?"

"The ah...the railing."

"How could I do that?"

"Chuck opens a mean door sometimes. I think she startled you, the dog barked, reared up, chaos ensued."

"And you were in the tub?"

"Uh, huh. I was, which is why I didn't quite see everything and why I'm not exactly dressed for a neighborly visit. I...should really get back home now. But call us if you feel anything...weird."

Ned turned and made a hasty exit.

"Okay, see you tomorrow!"

Ned shut Olive's door behind him and reentered his. Chuck was curled up in the chair by the TV, hugging Digby. She looked ten years old. Ned immediately went to comfort her when Digby started to growl at his approach.

Chuck looked alarmed. "Why's he doing that?"

Ned knelt on the rug and eyed his best friend. Both of them. Digby lowered his head and started to bark when Ned reached out a cautious hand to them.

Chuck took a sharp breath. "Oh, God! He's warning you. He doesn't want you to touch me."

Ned shook his head. "No that's..."

"Step back!" she said, tears starting in her eyes.

Ned got up and made as if he was intending to leave the room. Digby immediately relaxed and started wagging his tail.

Ned whistled for him and the dog ran over, jumped up and gave him a sloppy kiss. Ned scratched his head. "It's okay, boy. What's going on?"

The dog jumped down and sat at his feet. Ned took a tentative step past the animal toward Chuck and Digby rounded on him with a fury of angry barks.

"See!" Chuck cried. "He knows! He knows I'll kill you if I touch you or anyone else!"

Ned refused to believe this. "But you can touch Digby."

"Don't you get it? Digby's been dead already. You and Olive haven't. It's a pretty select club."

Ned shook his head. "I don't think..." he gestured toward the still bubbly bath. "Just fifteen minutes ago we were...oh wait a minute..."

"What?"

"The alarm clock. It went off at 9:24. It's exactly 24 hours since we..."

"Since we broke all the rules! Don't you see? I'm being punished now. We both are."

"That's ridiculous. Why do we need to be punished? We didn't do anything wrong or illegal last night...at least not in this state."

She shook her head, tears welling. "Those aren't the kind of rules I'm talking about. We had no business messing around with mysteries beyond our knowledge. We should have left it alone."

"But, you brought her back and she's fine now, more or less, and so that means..."

"The thump!" Ned and Chuck said together as they both looked at the ceiling. "Mrs. Wilcox!"

IX

Ned let Chuck drive on account of his throbbing sleep-deprivation headache. Ambulance chasing just wasn't his bag tonight. Her hands were on the wheel in a tight grip, only to be superseded by the grip on her tongue. The rubber glove hug limp and empty on his side of the barrier. He hoped in his state of confusion there wouldn't be any steering emergencies.

"Chuck...? Can we talk about this?"

She shook her head as she rounded a wide squealing left after the flashing lights of the vehicle carrying away their former upstairs neighbor. "You know, my aunts always warned me--'Don't mess around with boys, or you'll catch something.'"

"Catch something? You think I was contagious?"

"We didn't use protection, did we? Now look what I've got!"

"I don't think that's how you got it. Something went wrong on the mystical end. Something about the reversal spell. If there was a spell at all, I don't know. But I certainly didn't _expose_ you to anything on purpose."

"Well, it definitely mutated when it jumped ship. I kill things! Even you couldn't kill things!"

"I could involuntarily if I was distracted for more than sixty seconds."

"I killed Olive tonight. Olive! Sure, there were times when I was very jealous of her because she could kiss you and touch you and brush up against you accidentally-on-purpose and did whenever she could find a lame excuse to but I never wanted to kill her—okay maybe that once, for a brief second, but the feeling passed."

"You're mad at me, aren't you?"

She turned to him, eyes flashing through the Plexiglass. "Little bit, yeah!"

He swallowed. "Well, for what it's worth, I don't think Olive really noticed you k-- you temporarily deading her. "

"_I_ noticed! And deading isn't a verb."

"I think it's a perfectly good verb."

"That's because you're entirely too sensitive about these matters."

"I thought that's one of the things you liked about me. My...softer side."

"I like your softer side when it's naked and under me but not when it needs to stand up and face the harsh cold realities of life and death situations."

"Okay! Okay! You killed Olive and that sucks every kind of ass imaginable. But we'll find a way to deal with it."

"I don't want to deal with it. I want it cured!"

The emergency entrance waiting room was swimming with ear infections, scrapes and bruises—just busy enough to let a couple of unlicensed private eyes slip past the main doors unnoticed. They took cover behind a linen cart until the commotion in the ICU settled down and they overheard poor old annoying Mrs. Wilcox's pronouncement officially read. DOA.

Ned and Chuck waited for the ER team to file out of the curtained room before they slipped in.

Ned shut the curtains tight around them, whipped out his wristwatch and hit the button. "Go!"

"Wait...wait a minute."

Ned stopped the second hand. "Wait for what? We need to make this quick."

"I know but, can you at least wait until I..._do_ it before you start timing me?"

"It's much more efficient this way. Set watch before touch—less chance for error. Trust me on this."

She rubbed her hands nervously. "I just...don't have much experience with this."

"You've seen me do it enough times. It's like riding a bike, really."

"Really,"she said incredulously. "Where do I...where's a good place?"

"I recommend the cheek."

"Why the cheek?"

"I don't know—it's friendly, yet not too personal. It seems fitting for this sort of thing. You'll get the hang of it."

"But I don't _want_ to get the hang of it!"

"Chuck, we won't be able to get any answers if we're too afraid to ask the questions. You know we need to know if she was the repercussion for re-lifing Olive. The best way to discover that is by waking her—if you posses the ability."

"What do you mean, if?"

"Takes a certain kind of touch--"

"Okay, okay. Enough goading. Set your watch. Here goes..." Chuck jumped a little at the zap as Mrs. Wilcox gasped and came to life.

"Oh, my. How strange to see the two of you here. They didn't send you to make more noise, did they? I was rather enjoying the peace and quiet."

"We're not here to trouble you, Mrs. Wilcox," Chuck said. "We're here because I wanted to apologize for possibly...well, I don't really know how to put this, but I didn't mean to..."

"Ask the question..." Ned said under his breath.

"Stop...distracting me. This is difficult."

"It's going to be even more difficult in about 45 seconds."

"Okay. I'm sorry Mrs. Wilcox, but I need to know if you know, possibly, how you died."

"Oh, my, that's a story. You see, I was supposed to refill my angina medication last week on Tuesday but the pharmacy said they were all out and were going to have to order it from a drug store on the eastside. They said they'd deliver it but I don't like having my medications delivered with all these young hoodlums these days stealing personal property out of decent folks' postboxes so they said I'd have to take the subway but I didn't want to take the subway because it gets so cold on that eastside train this time of year and with my bunions..."

"Get to the punchline..." Ned said, tapping his watch.

"So do you think you died because you couldn't get your medication refilled?" Chuck redirected.

"Oh, no, not just that. It's all that noise you two were making tonight, startled me right out of my rest which gets my heart a-fluttering so fast..."

"Time!" Ned shouted.

Chuck hesitated.

"Time! Time!" He made a wild poking gesture with his finger.

Chuck poked and Mrs. Wilcox went right on talking. "...and when it gets going like the dickens like that and all the pain in my chest, well, it just gets to be something fierce and..."

"_Touch_ _her again_..." Ned said between his teeth.

Chuck did. "It's not working!"

"Touch her like you mean it!"

"I am!"

Ned whipped out his own finger and gave it a shot.

"I'll kindly ask you to stop doing that!" Mrs. Wilcox protested, getting up and putting her gnarled toes on the cold floor. "Now where are my slippers? I want to talk to my doctor."

Ned and Chuck stood open-mouthed as the old lady wobbled her wrinkled backside out of the ICU and into the hallway. "Hello? Helloo? Nurse?" There was a scream. Followed by another scream.

Ned looked at Chuck. "I think visiting hours are over, don't you?"

Chuck nodded briskly. "I think so."

X

"Ned, why are we doing this?"

Ned was too busy working a pilfered set of Emerson's lock picks in the keyhole of Harmon H. Hamron's police-tape adorned office doorknob to answer her.

"Because I don't see how it could lead to anything but more trouble," she continued. "This office represents the road marker at which our relationship took a serious wrong turn."

"I think you mean U-turn."

"U-turn? Who's driving whom where now?"

"To be honest, I've lost all sense of direction--in a road-map-blown-out-the-window-on-a-speeding-highway kind of lost. All I can think to do is come back to mile zero."

"And how is that going to help us? Harmon's dead."

Ned stopped picking for a moment. "You know we could just ask him..."

She shuddered. "I'm never, _ever_ doing that again."

Ned resumed his task, jiggling the knob. "That's what I said once until I realized resistance was futile."

"You're using 'quote voice.' Is this another one of your obscure Star Wars references?"

"Star Trek, actually. But either will serve in this situation. Ah...! We're in."

Harmon's office was dark and Ned flicked on a mini-flashlight to guide them through the plush velvet and heavy polished oak furnishings. Chuck followed with her gloved hands tucked in close, keeping a good four-foot clearance around him at all times.

Ned breezed over Harmon's shelves and tables until he came to the desk. He sat in the dead man's big rolling chair and started flipping thorough his rolodex. He'd pause every now and again and pocket a card.

"Ned, what are you doing?"

"Gathering leads. There's got to be somebody in here who can perform a decent side-effect free curse reversal."

"Ned, please stop...I said, stop!"

Ned looked up, index finger still in the "L"s.

"Don't you get it?" she said sadly. "Don't you understand what's happened?"

Ned raked a desperate hand through his tuft of bang. "Chuck...I have no earthly idea what's happened. And given my current punch-drunk state of total exhaustion, I'm only half convinced I'm not dreaming most of this. I'd be more convinced if we were wearing less clothes. But we're not and we can't touch, _again_, and so that means I'm likely as wide awake as I'll ever be—wait!"

Ned disengaged himself from the last straws he was grabbing at and stood up. The topic of dreams had flipped on a failing fluorescent bulb in the basement of his sputtering mind. "Did I forget to flush?"

"No, but I've been meaning to talk to you about leaving the seat--"

Ned shook his head. "No. Mer-Emerson. He asked me if I'd flushed."

"What?"

Ned crossed the room and opened a door at the end. Inside was a small washroom. He lifted the toilet seat. The water was stained a greenish hue.

"Ugh. _Somebody_ forgot to flush," Chuck said.

"Wait...are those tea leaves?" Ned said, putting the flashlight in his mouth and lifting off the back of the toilet. Inside the water well was a large floating cheesecloth sack. Ned used a gloved hand to lift it out. The sack was decorated in Japanese kanji and filled with a soggy aromatic blend of herbs and teas, tied off with a thick ribbon upon which dangled Harmon's multi-diamond pinky ring.

Chuck stared at it in wonder. "Someone made Harmon a batch of deadly toilet tea!"

Ned dropped it back into the bowl with a wet plunk and wiped his glove on his trenchcoat. "Whatever happened to voodoo dolls and sage leaves? Much more hygienic. And who knew garden nomads could be so vindictive."

"Who?"

"I think my nature-worshiping Shinto priest has been keeping a few secrets. What's more, I think he's been in collusion with my alarm clock."

"Why?"

Ned shrugged. "It's a Fujitsu."

Her eyes searched his. "I hate to say this, but I'm beginning to agree with you."

"About my evil clock radio?"

"No, about visiting Harmon. I think we need some solid answers, by whatever means necessary."

Ned grinned. "You have been assimilated."

XI

"This had better be important. On the level of 'iceberg right ahead,' important!"

Emerson arrived at the morgue wearing his suit coat over powder blue pajamas with little knitting needles, yarn balls and piglets printed on them with the slogan 'Perls Before Swine.'

Ned and Chuck were waiting for him to bring over a borrowed set of the coroner's keys. "Ooh! Are those chipmunk slippers?" Chuck cooed.

"They're gophers," Emerson said, unlocking the doors. "Grumpy gophers—none too keen on being out on the streets at 1 in the morning to let the two of you in to see a body you already seen. Don't you have a bed?"

"Yes," Ned sighed. "Not that I've spent much time in it lately."

"I recommend it, nightly. Let's get this over with."

Inside, Ned stood back as Chuck struggled to pull out Harmon's tray. Emerson leaned in to Ned's ear as she grunted and yanked. "Ain't you going to be a gentleman and help her with that?"

Ned shook his head. "I can't. And while we're on topic, you should probably want to avoid brushing up against Chuck."

"Jealous much?"

"No, just a safety tip. She killed Olive tonight."

"What? Olive's dead?"

Chuck whipped her head around. "She's fine now, thank you."

"Fine?" Emerson asked, perplexed. "You mean she got better or Ned here rediscovered his special talent?"

​"Neither," Chuck said, succeeding in extracting the whole of Harmon. "_I've_ got it now. Ned gave it to me."

Emerson took a healthy step back from the both of them. "You'd better be playin'."

Ned set his hands on his hips. "You know we really need to work on the semantics around here. I am not, nor have I ever been neutered, impotent, or infectious. My 'gift' somehow passed to Chuck at 9:24 pm tonight as the result of some half-baked spell backfiring or by other possible non-biological means. We're here to ask Harmon how."

Chuck unveiled the big, bluish man. "You ready, Ned?"

Ned pulled back his sleeve, reluctantly. "I'll time it. What good it will do...who knows. Go!"

Chuck made her move and Harmon flushed to life and sat up. "About time the three of you showed up. I was getting such a crick in my back. Ow! Was I sunburned?"

"No," Ned said. "But you do have one heck of a burn, with a Japanese center." He held up Harmon's ring. "Chuck and I found this in the back of your toilet attached to a pretty nasty looking tea bag. Any idea why?"

"That sonuvabitch Buddhist! And here I thought they were all non-violent. Throw me that, will ya?"

"He's Shinto, to be more accurate," Ned said, tossing the ring to the dead man who worked it part of the way back onto his bloated finger. "He works with a bowl."

Harmon snorted back a laugh. "You met Bob, I take it? Crazy old coot had been sending me threatening haiku about my business practices for months. Who knew he had any real moxie in him."

"What do you mean?" Chuck asked.

Harmon waved a blue hand around. "These charlatans, every act is different. Some use fiber optic crystal balls, others hypnosis. I even had a guy I sent folks to who had this surround sound system and fog machine hidden in the walls of his séance room—made those poor grieving relation think they were really talking to the dead. Which, I guess given this situation, isn't too strange an expectation."

"You've been running a con?" Ned said.

"Of course; they're all cons. I mean, who believes in real curses anymore?"

"We do!" the rest of the animated people in the room answered.

"But...my guy, the garden guy...he's the real deal..." Ned pointed to Chuck and to himself. "He reversed my curse but it wound up going wrong."

Harmon looked nonplussed. "Wrong how?"

"I can't touch the living," Chuck said matter-of-fact. "And I don't care for it one bit."

"Huh, I suppose that's because you paid for a reversal, instead of a removal."

"There's a difference?" Ned asked.

"Eh, depends on your point of view. Until the old man came along I wasn't too concerned about semantics."

"That's been going around," Ned grumbled. "But more to the point, why'd the old man have it in for you?"

"Beats me, he was getting an even cut."

"Speaking of which," Ned added. "Why did neither of you request a fee from me if this is all just a sham?"

"I think our bloated friend here knew his sorry life was in danger and if he got your love-sick self involved, you'd come wake him up once he got dead and solve it." Emerson observed.

Chuck's mouth dropped open. "You _used_ Ned!"

Harmon waived her off. "I wouldn't say used exactly. Borrowed maybe..."

"Borrowed?!" Chuck said. "Don't you know how you've hurt him?" She looked sympathetically at Ned. "He came to you because he honestly wanted your help for something he couldn't help himself. How could you take advantage of that?"

"I'll admit to having double motives. But I also hoped the old man might surprise us all and do some good--for the sake of the pies. Did he?"

Ned looked at Chuck who looked back at him longingly. "For a little while," she said.

Ned looked at his watch. "Oh, hell, we're coming up on a minute..."

She threw up her hands. "It doesn't matter, does it? The dead just stay alive now no matter what. The rules have all changed."

"So you can't ... uh, re-dead me? Is that the right verb?" Harmon asked.

Ned looked at the ceiling. "Don't ask me."

Chuck frowned. "Couldn't kill you if I tried."

"Hang on, let's talk proximity!" Emerson interrupted. "You know I can't run in my gophers!"

"I think you're safe," Ned said. "It only applies to raising the living."

"You _think_ it only applies to the living?"

Ned sighed. "We haven't really had the time to experiment...look, Harmon, I know Chuck would love to wring your neck, but I'd just like to find the old man and see if there's anything else that can be done. Can you help us find him?"

"Eh, sure. It's the least I can do for you folks bringing me back," Harmon said as he started to wriggle his way off the table. Chuck reluctantly offered a hand. "Can't wait to see the look on that ol--"

Harmon fell like a rock to the floor. Dead.

"Chuck!"

"What? What did I do?" She knelt and poked Harmon's cold nose to no avail.

"He was going to help us!"

Emerson stepped forward and toed at the very dead man. "I think it's about time you two got busy on those experiments."

More to come! Visit my livejournal username: eurofics for on-the-fly updates.


	3. Chapters XII to XIV & Epilogue end

**Curses and Reverses**

by europanya

XII

Ned collapsed face-first on his bed the second they arrived back at the apartment and refused to move. His last clear notion was of Emerson donning a pair of rubber gloves and reaching out the windows into the roof drains to collect dead things. Strange half-dreams about bent-winged pigeons and one-eyed crows flapping past his bedroom door with Emerson on their tail, swinging a broom, failed to stir him. The pillows still smelled of her hair and the sheets of them--he wanted to stay drowned in that memory and not come up for air for weeks. Or ever, the alternative being altogether too depressing. Here, in his sleeping life, she was spooned up next to him--soft, warm and happy.

There was sunlight on his face and a tailless rat near his ear when he woke.

"Agh!" Ned jumped up off the bed and the rat twitched its nose at him, content to bask in the morning rays. "There's a rat in my bed!" He looked over at Chuck's bed to find it occupied by gophers. "Agh!"

Emerson opened a red eye. "Be glad that's all you got in your bed. I took care of most of the roaches."

"Most of them? Where's Chuck?"

"Madame Curie's on the couch. You can tell her it's the last time this boy's playin' animal control for her or anybody."

Ned took note of the feathers wafting across his flooring. "What did you two do last night?"

Emerson rubbed his eyes and begrudgingly sat up. "Guess you'll need to know. Better to hear it from me than her, I suppose."

Something in his tone told Ned he'd better sit down, basking rat or no.

Emerson started counting the facts out on his fingers. "Here's how it goes down: Dead girl can't touch nothing alive. If she does, it gets dead and stays dead as long as she lets it lie. She touches it again, it's back in the game, but after the 60 second whistle blows, something else gonna die in its place. Sound familiar?"

Ned felt his heart sinking into his still-tied shoes. "It does. Go on."

"If she touches something that was dead already, it comes alive and stays alive and acts like it owns the damn place like your rat friend here. Had a hell of a time getting the chipmunks out of your bathroom."

"But what about Harmon?" Ned asked. "He went right back to blue and bloated the second she gave him her hand."

"That one got me, too," Emerson admitted, scratching his head. "Seems to me he's the piece that don't fit. 'Course that sucka did die under less than natural circumstances. Might have something to do with it. She did send him back to never-everland under the clock, didn't she?"

"I think so. I didn't think she could." Ned moaned and cradled his head in his hands. "I really messed things up, Emerson. Why do I do that?"

Emerson shrugged. "'Cause you stupid in love, that's why. Never met a guy who had it as bad as you. Best count your blessings and move forward."

Ned looked up, aghast. "But she can't touch _anyone_. At least before she could...if we or she wanted to...with somebody else...eventually, maybe..."

"Thing of it is you didn't want to--neither of you did or would. So you stuck your neck out and got it all chopped up. Was gonna happen one way or other. That's just how love is. One of these days you gonna die for that girl, sure as pie."

Ned wiped his eyes and looked toward the living room. "How'd she take it?"

Emerson looked glum. "Not so good."

Ned got up and stepped into the living room. Chuck was fast asleep on the couch with her arm around Digby. The dog opened his eyes and gave Ned a tail whap. "Hey, boy," Ned said quietly, kneeling next to them. "Don't worry, I'm not going to touch her." He looked back at Emerson. "At least there's Digby. And...what about Olive?"

Emerson shook his head. "No good. Dead forever if she tries that hug again."

"Then what about Mrs. Wilcox? She was the trade-in for keeping Olive alive."

"A repercussion death, stays dead. We tried it on a couple of roaches. No change no matter how many times she poked 'em. Your Mrs. Wilcox died of natural causes. Though, your girl here told me with all the ruckus you two were making over Olive you might have killed her either way."

Ned was puzzled. "Then who...?"

Emerson patted his pajama pocket. "Got a call early this morning from my man at the morgue. Street person was found dead last night by the dumpster behind this place. Time of death was estimated at 9:30 pm. Cause of death--unknown."

Ned shuddered. "Chuck know about that?"

Emerson shook his head.

Ned reached out a careful hand and petted Digby's head while Chuck slept. "Let's keep it that way."

Ned opened the passenger side door and held out his hand to Chuck. She sat unmoving, clutching Bob in her lap with gloved hands.

"Ned, what if there's children in there!" They were parked in front of the Sakura Emporium, not a block from Japantown's dilapidated gardens.

"There isn't. There's never anybody in here. Just the old woman."

Chuck took his hand tentatively and let herself be coaxed out of the car. She was dressed head to toe in long sleeves, scarves and gloves. A bit excessive he felt, but it was necessary to keep her comfortable. It took him three patient hours just to convince her to leave the apartment and only then on account of his lousy Japanese.

"Look, we'll just ask her about Bob and then go get sushi or something."

"Sushi? Ned! We can't just...walk around here like nothing's wrong."

"It won't be so bad, or at least not as bad as you think. Come on, sweetheart, I need you."

Inside the cluttered gift shop Ned led Chuck though the plethora of hanging scrolls, multi-color kimono, Buddha fountains, watercolor fans, silk slippers, masks, charms and incense. An ancient woman sat behind a trinket-cluttered desk in the back, watching Fuji TV on a six-inch screen.

"Excuse me..." Ned began.

The old woman held up a hand. "_Ee, ee, eh, eigo_."

"No English," Ned repeated, turning to Chuck. "See?"

Chuck took a breath and eased forward. "_Chotto sumimasen, anata no baru wa doko ni arimasu ka_?"

The old woman lifted her hooded eyes from the tiny moving image of a samurai about to slit his belly open with a bamboo sword. "_Donna baru desu ka_?"

Ned looked at Chuck. "Did she ask what kind of bowl?"

Chuck nodded and held up Bob.

"Ah.." the old woman said. "_So no baru_."

Chuck glanced at Ned. "I think she's seen it before. _Ko no baru wa yuumei na baru desu ne_?"

"_Hai_!" the woman responded, pointing up to a high shelf behind them. On it was stacked ten or twelve 'Bobs' of identical size and pattern.

"Bob's got friends," Ned commented.

"Eh?" the woman said.

"_Ko no_ bowl...uh, _baru_ _no namae wa Bob-san desu_," Ned clarified, hoping she'd recognize the name.

The old woman pointed at their bowl. "_Bob-san desu ka_?"

Ned nodded. "_Hai_."

The old woman burst into laughter.

Ned turned to Chuck. "This isn't going very well. Ideas?"

"Not everyone names their bowls around here, I guess. Let me try something else..."

Chuck stepped forward and engaged the woman in a deeper, faster conversation in which Ned could only pick out the occasional word. Something about _Nihon no niwah--_Japanese garden, _ojiisan—_old man and _shinto_. At which the old woman stood up and rattled off a list of directions, waving her hands about in such a way that made Chuck back up nervously. Ned caught her scarf swathed shoulders.

"What's she saying about a path--_komichi_?"

Chuck stepped away from him. "We need to seek the path behind the _sakanaya_—fish market."

"And...what's behind the fish market?"

"_Ojiisan," _Chuck said "Hopefully your _ojiisan_."

Ned bowed to the old woman. "_Domo arigato gozaimasu_." Chuck echoed the thanks and they headed out with Bob in pursuit of the scent of fish.

XIII

"Wait, Ned. Stop the car."

Ned pulled over beside a busted parking meter at the bitter end of Japantown where the wharf began and the tug boats came in to rest and rust.

"Here?"

Chuck pointed out the front windscreen to a large weathered sign, cut in the shape of a fish. The name, once painted in Hiragana, was now peeled into obscurity. Ned pulled the parking brake and made a point to roll up the windows and lock the Mercedes' doors. Chuck peered through the plywood boarded windows of the abandoned market with Bob tucked under her arm.

"See anything in there?" Ned asked, examining the peeping view from a few feet higher. All he could see was the random detritus of a long gone-out-of-business establishment. "This can't be the right place."

"Look, a path!" Chuck said, moving to slip through a narrow gap in the chain link fence just behind the building. Ned followed her and tried to avoid the worst of the rotting tide-abandoned garbage as they picked their way along under the docks. Anchored here in the shallows was a long narrow fishing boat, shrouded in tangled netting and lit from within.

Ned approached the gangplank and tried a hello. Nothing. He turned to Chuck with a 'what now' face when a voice called out from inside. _Yokoso_! A young man with a shaved head and ceremonial robes opened the cabin door and bowed. "You are expected," he said graciously. "Please remove shoes."

Ned did and stooping, followed a de-heeled Chuck past the young man and into the low-ceilinged cabin. The interior was hung in bright silks that shimmered in the glow of dozens of lit candle boxes. Finely woven tatami was laid in over the decking and made cozy with embroidered floor pillows and a few low tables. Red and gold charms with dangling ribbons were hung from the hull ribs and tinkled with tiny bells as the boat rocked gently in the harbor. In the center of it all, upon a futon, reclined the old man, muttering into a small incense dish, cutting the scent of old fish. He looked much more ancient than Ned remembered. Together, Ned and Chuck knelt on the pillows beside him and bowed. "_Konbanwa_."

The _ojiisan_ bowed his head in reply and set his incense aside. "What took you so long?" he asked.

"I didn't know you were waiting for us," Ned said.

"I am always waiting. Much as you are always waiting. I see you have found Bob."

"Yes," Chuck said, presenting the bowl with another bow. "We'd like to return him to you."

The old man made no move to take it. "You keep Bob," he said. "I can not take care of him anymore. Treat him kindly. He likes roses." The old man studied Chuck thoughtfully for a moment. Then Ned. "This is your no-touch girl, eh?"

Ned was a little embarrassed. "This is Chuck, or Charlotte, I guess. I don't get to introduce her to too many people."

"You should, she is beautiful."

Ned grinned, definitely embarrassed.

Chuck looked fondly at him. "Ned's my childhood sweetheart. And my grown-up one, too. But I suppose he told you that."

"He did. But he did not need to. Now that I see you both together, I understand."

Ned looked up. "So you know what's happened? Why we're here?"

"Yes, I am very sorry," he said to Chuck. "When two souls are so bound, one can see how the curse was passed. I am sorry that it must remain so. _Gomen nasai_. "

Ned's hope sank with the tide. "You mean...? Is there nothing you can do for her?"

"I have done all I can. But it was not enough. I am old. Not so strong. Many year now people come to me to seek answer to problems. Most come for what they do not have. Most come out of loneliness. With you, this was not so."

Ned was distressed. "Was the garden my fault? Because I'll do whatever I can to fix it. I didn't want it destroyed. I didn't want anything to suffer on my account." He looked at Chuck. "Or anyone. I know now I should have left it alone. It was my gift, my burden. She doesn't deserve this. No one does."

"Your curse is very powerful. Very connected to you. I could only hold onto it a little while. When I came out of my trance, my strength was gone and the _niwah_ with it. My life is at its end, just as another will begin. Everything changes, but nothing is lost. The path you chose for her began long ago--the first time you said, 'hello.'"

Ned felt seasick. "What?"

"You know, this no-touch girl is capable of picking her own path just fine," Chuck said, irritated. "Ned's not alone in this. What about you and Harmon? Hardly blameless, I'd say."

The old man frowned. "Harmon was a bad man. He brought great shame to us," he said, indicating his young ward who sat in meditation near the door. "He would not see where his path would lead him, either."

"I don't understand," Chuck said. "Are you punishing Ned? Because if you are, shame on you."

The _ojiisan_ grunted and reached for Bob, caressing the rim like a mortician. "I do not punish. I do not create or destroy, only push and pull. We punish ourselves, not each other."

Ned blinked, trying to grasp the meaning. "Then you believe we brought this upon ourselves? Is that what you mean? And Harmon, what...he had it coming for all the bad faith he led people to believe in? Where I come from we call that murder."

The old man tapped the bowl with a bony finger. "Bob asks if he may speak to you."

"To whom? To Chuck? No way," Ned insisted.

Chuck held out her gloved hand. "Let me at 'im."

"Chuck!"

She turned to him. "When were you going to tell me about the homeless man, Ned?"

Ned's jaw dropped. "How...?"

"Pretending to be asleep seems to be the only way to get the truth out of you."

Ned shut his eyes. "I'm sorry."

Her eyes were moist. "You're always sorry. Are you still trying to protect me?"

"I am," he whispered. "I can't seem to help it."

"It's a little late now, don't you think?"

Ned dropped his head.

Chuck took the bowl from the _ojiisan_. "What do I do?"

"Take Bob up above. Fill him with water. Tell him your name and speak from the heart. Clap three times when you are finished."

Ned shook his head in defeat. "Chuck, please don't do this."

She stood, bowl in her arms and left him for the deck ladder.

"Don't let her do this," Ned implored. "Please."

"It is out of my hands," the old man said. "And yours as well, I fear. Bob knows best."

Ned struggled with himself whether to go up or to stay put. He could hear the sounds drifting down from the upper deck. Of Chuck filling the bowl and of her seating herself beside it--no doubt seeing herself in Bob's reflection just as he had.

"She stopped calling me 'honey,' today," Ned said, weakly. "...she loves honey. I should go up there."

"Tread carefully, _tomodachi_. Or you will lose much more than her endearments."

XIV

Ned lay in bed, unable to sleep. His heart was running amok in his chest, refusing to calm. Too many unexpected joys and sorrows had rushed through his life in the last 48 hours to properly metabolize. He had been too frightened to sneak up the deck ladder and listen to what she might have said to Bob. Frightened into a state of inertia. Did she speak of love as he had, or of disappointment? Sorrow? Regret? These were the very things he had wanted to keep her safe from. When she returned, her face flushed from tears, the _ojiisan_ looked into Bob's brassy depths and spoke:

"Bob says, 'Trust in yourselves, alone. Only then will you walk the path that leads to each other.'"

They didn't speak on the drive back. She seemed exhausted; they both were. There would be no more miracles or reprieves. How was Ned to trust in himself now, when himself kept screwing everything up? And alone: he tried to picture it and the thought of a life without her in it was worse than death. And death, well...

Ned sat up in bed and turned on the light. "That's it. It's so simple I don't know why I didn't think of it."

Chuck yawned and rolled over. "What's simple?"

Ned felt a sense of wonder come over him. "I have to die."

"Ned, what are you talking about?"

Ned got up and started pacing, turning the notion over in his mind. "I'll have to come up with a good way to do it because I don't want to come back missing an ear or with..._things_ sticking out of my face. You looked really good dead, and still do—how was your death? Not too bad, right?"

"Oh my God, Ned. What...?!"

He knelt at her bedside. "If I die, then you can bring me back. I'll be just like Digby and Mrs. Wilcox. Thanks to her at least we know it works on people who have died naturally. Don't you see?"

Her face was as horrified as it was beautiful. "You're not talking about a natural death. You can't just...Ned, I won't let you..." Tears broke over her eyelids. "I don't want you to...I can't believe you would..."

"But I would, for you, don't you know that?"

"I don't _want_ to know that! This is crazy. You're not thinking."

"No. For once I am really thinking. It's the perfect solution. It will even the playing field. I made a life happen when it shouldn't have, not against any law of mine, but by the laws that govern this...balance everyone keeps talking about. Everything changes, but nothing is lost. That's what the _ojiisan_ said. It's give and take. You saw the garden. That was a sacrifice. I need to make that same sacrifice."

"You're talking about your life, Ned. Life is a gift, not a bargaining chip. You can't cash it in for goods and services. If there's anything I learned from my death it's this—you don't give a gift back, ever."

"And I won't give _you_ back," Ned said, steadying his voice. "Not after...what we had. Not when you can't be touched by anyone. I used to tell myself if we didn't work out in the end, at least you had a chance with someone else."

"I don't want anyone else," she said.

"Neither do I. So what can we do other than play the cards we've been given? I still have one left."

She covered her mouth and let out a sob. "I won't let you do this. You can't make me just sit here and watch you..."

He shook his head. "I wouldn't do that to you. Chuck, baby, no. Please don't cry. Please."

She cried anyway, big gulping sobs that went into her pillow instead of his arms.

"I want to hold you more than anything in this world," he said. "I don't think that's too much to ask."

"I do. I do," she said, trying to catch her voice. "Please don't talk about this again."

"Chuck..."

"Please. Just go to sleep. We need to sleep. We're very tired and we're not making any sense. Go. Go!"

Reluctantly, he got up. "Okay. We'll sleep. I'm sorry...about all of this."

She wiped her eyes on her pillow. "I know you are. It's all right. Just shut out the light."

Ned did and crawled back into his bed. Somehow, the thoughts spinning through his head leveled off when her breathing evened and he drifted into a deep peaceful sleep void of dreams. And the next morning when he woke, renewed, she was gone.

A storm blew through the city. No one could say why but after it came and went, washing the streets down, something had changed. Not in an obvious glaring way, but in a subtler, sadder way--a way that tugs deep inside and places a "closed forever" sign on the door under a cold crust roof in the heart of a city that never knew it had one. The Piemaker they said had left town unexpectedly at the height of the freak storm. Disappeared after his shadow into the night never to be seen or heard from again. And with him had gone a little bit of the magic that had warmed the city, in that tugging place, even if some folks had never taken the time to step in for their own slice of pie heaven. Because, as fate and prognostication would have it, his was gone.

But others, two others to be exact (a former waitress and PI), knew more. They knew that someone with no name or credit history who should be dead, can vanish faster than the wind and leave no trace. Not a trace even a loyal barking friend can detect. And when that friend and his master at last returned, world-weary and lost, there was only so much that could be done. And through no fault of anyone's, on a night as quiet and still as the stars, the man named only for his occupation, died just as quietly in his sleep of a broken heart.

Epilogue

Ned whistles as he walks home along the sandy path by the sea cliffs. The sun is setting over the ocean and the gulls are flying in to shore for the night. His apron is flung over his shoulder and he holds a tangled knot of dry stems in his hand. He wonders idly if he always used to whistle or if that's a new habit he's adopted. He reaches his outer gate and hops over it into the yard.

The three-legged cat is first to greet him with a laryngetic meow, followed by the bleating of the one-eared goat and the blind moo of the cow. They're like the three evils—except with farm animals instead of monkeys. He fears it won't be long until there's one of those, too--an as-is model macaque perhaps, or a one-armed lemur discarded from the zoo. At least it was easy to tell the pets from the food. He trots up the steps to his front porch and unlatches the screen.

In the kitchen, she's pulling a turkey out of the oven which explains the lack of gobbling in the nearby coop. He imagines her chasing it about the straw-covered pen for one, then two and a third final deadly touch of her delicate hands.

"You're early," she says, basting the beast. "This has another hour on it."

"I'm only a little early. It was a slow day. I missed you."

She smiles as she pushes the bird back into the oven and comes over to give him a kiss. He squeezes her back and holds up the crackling mass he's gathered for her.

"Hmm..? What are they, I wonder?" she says.

"I think they might be bluebells."

She holds out her hand to take them, and once in her grasp, the wasted stems and petals uncurl and swell into colorful life.

"Sweet peas," she says, inhaling. "My favorite." They earn him another kiss before the offering goes into one of the many vases that cover every windowsill, cabinet top and shelf in the cottage. The kitchen table's seat of honor is reserved for Bob, chock full of cut roses. The last words spoken to the bowl, some years ago on the deck of a fishing boat, were a wish made solely for Ned.

"Go get cleaned up," she says, disappearing into the pantry. "I need to get one more thing ready."

He nods and climbs the steep stairs into the loft. Digby raises a lazy head from the last sunny spot on their bed. "Get down, boy," he reminds the dog, scratching his soft head. "You know better." He likes to keep the bed relatively dog hair free—it's an antique from a bygone era along with the homestead, removed from the bustle and noise of the city, and filled with cozy warmth, hugs, cuddles and lots and lots of touching. He smiles has he undresses for the shower.

The water pressure is uneven and the temperature not much of an improvement over the Liberty Building's plumbing, so he warms himself under the sputtering spray with the memory of his waking. There were tears in her eyes, when his opened, which only made her all the more lovely. He smiled up at her, as she leaned over him in her black dress, and pulled her down into the casket with him, slamming the lid. Their first re-introductions in the dark, lying on pleated silk funeral bedding might not be the most romantic setting for conventional lovers, but it suited them fine—reliving that magical fairytale kiss over and over, much to the funeral director's shrieking, fleeing distress. And thus, like the road-kill menagerie outside, he's become one of her creations--as she was already his. It's an intimacy no one else can ever understand—so they keep it secreted away and surrounded by sea breezes and flowers, which like them, will never fade.

Showered and changed, he returns to the lower floor, drying his hair with a hand towel. "Is that popcorn I smell?" he asks.

She holds up a steaming bowl and beckons him to her. She's sitting barefoot and cross-legged on the couch, working the remote. "Before dinner snack. There's an Audrey Hepburn marathon on. We might as well take advantage of it before you take advantage of me."

"What, no chance to work up an appetite?"

She raises her brow in a perfect Hepburn ode.

He laughs. "I'll go get the blanket."

end


End file.
